ADVERSE EMPLOYMENT ACTIONS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL ...

primary cause for adverse actions was interpersonal skills (Davis, 1998; Matthews, 2002).
School administrators who were identified as having poor interpersonal skills experienced
problems in a vast array of areas. Superintendents consistently reported complaints from parents
and teachers about the administrator’s comments and/or overall attitude toward others in a
subordinate position. Hymorwitz (1988) identified five reasons that managers fail. His top reason
was an inability to get along on the part of the manager. He noted that struggling managers
“can’t inspire and win the loyalty of subordinates because they aren’t good listeners, don’t give
and take criticism well” (Hymorwitz, 1988, 2). The connection between the manager and
school administrator is easy to see; moreover, Lemley (1997) noted that “site-based management
fall[s] flat unless the principal establishes strong relationships” (p. 34). Failure to work well with
others was the top at-risk behavior for school administrators who faced adverse employment
action.
The second area that was identified in the literature was misconduct on the part of school
administrators. Misconduct is not be confused with the at-risk behaviors even though the
behavior often led to the misconduct. The distinction of misconduct was the reason presented in
litigation for the adverse employment action against a school administrator. In order to identify
the most common forms of misconduct, Sacken (1996) reviewed over 240 cases whereby a
school administrator suffered an adverse employment action. Sacken (1996) did not seek to
identify the legal trends and rulings in the cases; he was merely chronicling the forms of
misconduct. His study was, however, remarkable in its seeming singularity of study. The largest
classification of cases that Sacken (1996) reviewed involved claims of incompetence. There were
striking connections in this category to the most commonly identified behavior--poor
interpersonal skills--that resulted in adverse actions (Davis, 1998; Hymorwitz, 1988; Matthews,
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